Health and economic burdens of emerging infectious diseases in the USA, US territories and globally

Bibliographic Data

ID21879476
AuthorsJ P Sevilla (0000-0001-9807-657X, Harvard Global Health Institute), Daria Burnes (0000-0002-8624-1344, Health Decisions (United States)), Mona Birjandi (Golden Gate University), Joseph S Knee (0000-0001-5300-4206, Health Decisions (United States)), Julie Villanueva (0000-0002-5648-4716, Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority), David P Durham (0000-0002-4256-7705, Leidos (United States)), Scott V Nystrom (Nystrom Consulting LLC, Ponte Vedra, Florida, USA), Scott Nystrom (St. Johns Center for Clinical Research), Courtney D Petro (0000-0001-7297-8807, Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority), Jennifer Lumpkins (0009-0009-6107-8286, AES (United States)), Deborah Schneider (0009-0009-3058-6077, AES (United States)), David E Bloom (0000-0003-3731-3345, Harvard Global Health Institute), Richard C White (0000-0003-1970-692X, Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, corresponding author), Robert A Johnson (0000-0002-0574-6683, Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority)
Year2026
Volume11
Issue6
Pagese020855
Publication date2026-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueBMJ Global Health (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2059-7908 • E-ISSN: 2059-7908
PublisherBMJ (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1136/bmjgh-2025-020855
PMID42331515
OpenAlexW7165530465
LanguageEN
References cited28

INTRODUCTION: Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) cause significant health and economic burdens in the USA and globally. Existing methods and analyses fall short of what is required to prioritise diseases for health technology research and development (R&D), including for medical countermeasure (MCM) development within rapid response frameworks by the Center for Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, part of the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. METHODS: We developed a method for quantifying and ranking health and economic disease burdens ('full burdens') and applied it to 15 high-priority EIDs for 223 countries and territories, including the USA and US territories, historically from 2000 to 2022 and prospectively from 2025 to 2034. Health burdens consisted of disability-adjusted life-year losses, converted into monetary values using the value of a statistical life-year. Economic burdens consisted of direct and indirect costs during the acute stage of illness for hospitalised cases. We computed unweighted and weighted burden measures, the latter controlling for global disparities in ability-to-pay to avoid EID burdens. We projected future disease burdens using Monte Carlo simulation. RESULTS: Pandemics caused the largest historical and projected unweighted and weighted full burdens in the USA and globally. Among non-pandemics, across unweighted and weighted burdens, dengue and cholera imposed the largest historical and projected full burdens globally; West Nile Virus imposed the largest historical and projected full burdens in the USA, and dengue imposed the largest historical full burdens in the US territories. Weighted full burdens exceeded five times the unweighted ones. Regionally, the Americas and Africa faced the largest per capita weighted burdens while the Western Pacific region faced the smallest. CONCLUSION: R&D priority-setting, including MCM development, depends on multiple criteria, including disease burdens. Our full burden quantification methods and results, along with other such criteria, can inform optimal priority-setting

Dengue fever · Dengue vaccine · Disease · Emerging infectious disease · Global health · Pandemic · Preparedness · Public health · Mosquito-borne diseases and control · Viral Infections and Outbreaks Research · Zoonotic diseases and public health

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